The Valideus Registry
The Valideus Registry system has been designed to support both Private Brand Registries and Public Brand Registries. The primary system is ideal for brand owners that want a new gTLD registry that will hold from 10 – 50,000 domain names for use by their own marketing experts, employees, suppliers, licensees etc. However, there are additional features that can be added to support brand owners that want to open registration to broader publics, accepting perhaps millions of registrations.
We will advise you on the features that we think will best support your registry during the planning process and the associated costs.
The Registration System
The Valideus Registry system has been commissioned from the team that created .be and .eu which has formed OpenRegistry, a company based in Luxembourg to provide new gTLD registry infrastructure. All clients of Valideus will have dedicated Client Management within OpenRegistry complementing the support provided by Valideus.
As required by ICANN, direct registration into any new gTLD registry is not allowed. Registration must be via ICANN Accredited Registrars. However, if you are a Private Brand Registry owner, why should you pay to put a domain name in your own registry? We have a solution through accredited registrar Com Laude to help you place domain names in your registry without incurring any fees over the ICANN per domain levy.
Our system is based upon Ascii but is fully IDN compatible. IDN characters can be registered either in ACE notation (xn--) or in original characters. We can accommodate many scripts on request.
Both Ascii characters and IDN characters can also be used to populate contact data (name of registrant, address, telephone etc).
The validity period of the domain can be set by the registry owner.
The price of each transaction – registration, renewal, modification, assignment – can be set by the registry owner.
Renewals are managed automatically: to protect your domains, we assume that each domain in your registry is to be renewed. You need to instruct your registrar or Com Laude, if you are using its services as your Gate Way registrar, explicitly to lapse a domain. Alternatively we can require an explicit command to renew each domain but we do not recommend this if you are a Private Brand Registry owner.
For Public Brand Registries, we have Pre-Pay and Post-Pay options: the Pre-Pay system requires accredited registrars to deposit funds for registrations and other transactions in advance with your registry. When the deposit is exhausted, no more transactions can be undertaken by the registrar until the registrar account has been topped up. With the Post-Pay option, registrars are invoiced in arrears. The Pre-Pay system can be switched off and turned into a Post-Pay system.
A Redemption Grace Period is standard in the system with parameters that you can set, though we recommend a 40 day quarantine period following the expiration of any domain is usually sufficient for the owner to realise that a domain has lapsed and to renew it.
The Assignment process requires both the current owner and the new owner to provide confirmation by email. These confirmations are checked by registry staff to ensure that your domains cannot be spirited away.
The Registration Platform
The Registration Platform is a feature rich modular system designed initially for Private Brand Owners with many options for Public Brand Registries.
The heart of the Valideus registration system is a database that contains information on all domains within the registry.
Web Interface
It is possible for accredited registrars to register domain names through a simple online web interface. The registrar creates each new contact and sets a hierarchy level for the contact, providing access to transactions and information as appropriate. Each registrar can track the history of any domain in his own portfolio, including all invoices and payments and can only see domains in his own portfolio.
EPP
ICANN has mandated that all new gTLD registries support EPP (Extensible Provisioning Protocol) which allows multiple registrars to provision and manage (register and renew) domain names stored in a shared central repository (such as the Valideus registry). Our EPP links each domain name to a set of servers, to a registrant and to a registrar and can be adapted and extended to your particular needs.
Sunrise System & Clearinghouse Integration
If you are running an Open Brand Registry you may require a Sunrise system to help you to manage multiple competing applications from rights owners. Our system queues applications pending the receipt of documentary evidence to substantiate the validity of an applicant. A validator will see a screen containing data on the applicant and the IPR on which the application is based. When an approval button is clicked, the domain is automatically registered. If the Clearinghouse proposed by ICANN is created, our Sunrise system will also integrate with the Clearinghouse.
Back Office
The Valideus Registry features a Back office management system that contains information on both domains in the registry and registrar account activity. Authorised users can use a web tool to interface with the registry system in order to:
- Create contacts
- Review or create invoices
- Enter payments
- Attribute credit lines
- Transfer a portfolio from one registrar’s account to another upon request and after verification
- Track all activities to assist in reporting. A variety of standard management reports can be set up and there is a flexible program for the creation of On Demand reports.
Invoicing & Accounting
At the end of each month, you may wish to undertake an invoicing run. The Valideus system gives a detailed picture of all chargeable transactions in a month, showing the fees charged for different transactions (new registration, renewal, assignment etc) all linked to the appropriate domains. Invoices can be produced electronically or printed with the logo of the registry owner. An archive features a history of all invoices and payments.
Whois Interface
The Valideus registry system offers a number of customisable whois options including:
- Port 43 access
- An on-line webpage
- The flexibility to define which fields will be shown in a whois record and which will be hidden, with the ability to turn this On and Off as needed. This will be useful should you want to publish the names of corporate registrants, for example, but keep the name of private/individual registrants hidden.
- Details to be displayed as an image rather than in plain text to avoid data harvesting
- Configurable Rate Limitation per IP address so that some parties, for example approved agencies offering Domain Name Watching can access your data if you wish it
- A DAS (Domain Availability Service) option: the DAS protocol is similar to the Whois protocol but only returns the availability of a domain name for registration. It is used for pre-registration look-ups.
All whois queries are run against the live database. This means that any changes or new registrations are immediately visible.
End User Extranet
The Valideus Registry system features an optional End-User extranet, specially designed for Public Brand Registries. If activated by the registry operator, the following options are available to each registrant:
- To block a domain from transfer – an important security enhancement
- To receive alerts from the registry operator such as when the domain attributes are changed. Should a registrar accidentally send an instruction for deletion, the end user is informed
- To see all the fields in a registrant’s own Whois, including the fields that are normally hidden such as Registrar ID number, when last updated, when first registered.
- To view homoglyphs (domains that look identical to the registrant’s own domain but, for example, with a number zero replacing the letter O).
ADR Extranet
A feature designed for Public Brand Registries is the ADR Extranet. This allows an approved ADR provider to place a domain name on hold once a formal UDRP or URS complaint has been filed, preventing cyberflight. This feature will be superfluous to most Private Brand Registry operators.
XML Export & Escrow
All data in the Valideus Registry can be exported in XML to an external escrow agency through a generic interface. This is a fast and efficient way of securing data.
Procedural Security
The Valideus Registry offers a number of features to promote security and stability including:
- Transfer control to avoid unintentional transfers
- Prohibition on Owner Updates: this prevents the owner of a domain from being accidentally changed. A change of owner requires a formal assignment.
- The option for Valideus to take control of domain names in any registrar account, should the registrar become insolvent. The names can then be re-allocated to a new registrar without disturbing registrant functionality.
- Locking domains to prevent unauthorized transfers
Technical Security
Features to promote technical security include:
- Measures to limit data harvesting by limiting accesses per second
- User log-in with passwords and granular authorization
- Encryption of communications between registrars and the registry
- DNSSEC
Technical Robustness & Resilience
The Valideus Registry is based upon the OpenRegistry platform which is linked to the internet through three ISPs and one local internet exchange point so that the failure of any single provider or any hardware component can be absorbed without any failure of service.
The database is structured so that the Master Database is synchronised with a local copy. All applications run on blade servers that allow for immediate recovery/replacement and are eminently scalable.
The storage solution matches the database structure and there is a mirror site at a remote location in case of an unavoidable catastrophe on the main site.
Name Server Infrastructure
With NameServers distributed all over the world for load balancing and robustness, the Valideus Registry provides a secure DNS infrastructure at multiple locations which can be upgraded to an Anycast solution. The Valideus Registry has been designed to surpass ICANN’s technical requirements and will support DNSSEC.
Note: The above specifications may change in light of ICANN’s requirements and our determination to improve security and stability.